Roots
by Xia strange
Summary: We were both born from a tangled and twisted tree with all the hope in the world. Moriarty/OC.


**I do not own any characters from Sherlock. I do claim ownership of the main female character and any supplemental characters that are not from the show. I look forward to hearing reviews from readers and I hope that you will enjoy this story as much as I enjoy writing it.**

"_No"._

Even though she practiced the word in her mind, in the mirror and with her mouth it never came out with the vindication she felt and always proved a fruitless attempt at practicing her supposed rights. Maybe her under developed backbone had to do with her childhood, as Freudian as it sounded and she smirked at the thought. Freudian would be the kind description of her twisted, rotted childhood and childhood was much too naïve of a word. Her childhood had ended the moment her black and white oxfords filled with mud and algae stepping out of the battle scarred Mercedes that had become consumed by the washed away road to their new house, which was not to be confused with a home, because a home is where memories were made and she could feel it in her bones that there was not enough love in her family and not enough bravery in herself to create a home out of this skeletal mansion that could only breed hate. Hate was something her family had been running from for the entire eight years she had been alive but the only thing they could attract was hate and there was never any sincerity in them running because from when her parents were conceived, to her parent's meeting, to her own conception it was all destined by a long and twisted line of a decaying family tree that only led to the root of all evil and she was just as helpless as the rest of them. The thought scared her and she recalled a lecture her father's friend was speaking at, though she was mostly distracted by the smell of old books and professors shuffling in their seats she picked up three very important words that bound to her core and perhaps ruined her for the rest of her life…he cleared his throat and in a thick German accent stated with vindication (which she had always lacked), "Like attracts like". From that day on she knew her fate was sealed and could feel the roots of her family tree snake up her legs and push her linen dress aside, crawling around her wrists, destroying the rag doll her great grandmother had sewn for her, even twisting into and under her undergarments and took away any innocence she dared keep because she was now one of them, one of her family. Any small chance she had at salvaging a scrap of a childhood was burned the day they moved into the Irish countryside, it was when her small feet laced in her new black and white leather oxford shoes became entrenched in mud and algae, forcing her to run in painful slow motion attempting to reach her parents that were so distant. The heavy wood door shutting, muffling the sounds of parents, her body pitched forward as her shoes refused to move no longer, her body becoming consumed by the transformed earth, the weight of his body on her, helping the earth swallow her whole. Her childhood ended the day her parents walked through those heavy wooden doors, bickering and hauling worn cardboard boxes, forgetting her outside, leaving her unbeknownst to them in the young neighborhood boy's hands of James Moriarty.

_"No, no I'm not interested"_, she said sheepishly, her fingers fumbling through her purse. "Come on now, last call at the bar, certainly don't want to go home alone now , do you?" his face was unshaven and his breath was heavy of dark ale and beer nuts, his oil stained fingers were touching her in places that a stranger shouldn't, his hot breath was sticky on her neck and she strained her head to avoid this unwanted advance. "I have to go" she muttered, pulling against his grasp ,his fingers slipped from her forearm though she could still feel the ghost of his hand upon her slightly stinging. She thinks she can hear him cursing at her, calling for her but the pub is too loud with boozy patrons singing the victory anthem for the winning football team and high pitched squeals from over flirtatious girls who have found a bed for the night with a local university lad, it makes her stomach churn. She is almost certain that he is now hollering at her across the alley, she keeps her head down low and walks briskly, her flat isn't too far from here.

She tries to catch her breath as her shoulders are pinned against the wall with the drunken chav yelling at her, his accent too thick and too slurred to even understand the obscenities he's mouthing. Her brow is furrowed and her hands on now on his forearms perhaps asking to let her go or maybe telling him that she understands, that she knows he's angry at the world and she's just some pretty girl he can use for the night to boost his ego to get his rocks off, but she's so bloody tired. "I'm tired", she states curtly, he's taken aback, he really takes a good look at her, it almost reminds her of when Jim first looked at her, but the chav lacks the brilliance to understand her features and her secrets, all he can notice is that she's not scared, she's not crying and that she's beautiful, probably Spanish. A pained look comes across his face, she has him in a half hug with her arm wrapped around his head and her hand gently stroking his hair, "I'm very tired" she whispers, his warm blood is making its way down the hilt of the knife and onto her fingers almost like the way roots grow. Her knees slightly buckle under his weight as he begins to slump to the pavement littered with fags, she gently holds him while she brings him to rest on the ground and presses her black pump into his stomach using it as leverage to free the knife from his sternum, she takes a good look at him his eyes still wide with surprise, he resembles a floundering fish his mouth in an O searching for air, she wipes the knife off on his ripped baggy pants. She'll sleep well tonight and the night after and even until she's dead and in the ground, her heart was swallowed up long ago it's always been in her blood, in her roots of that twisted family tree where she was born out of hate, but she's never been any good at saying "_No_".


End file.
